1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a bookbinding apparatus attached to an image forming apparatus such as, for example, a copying machine or a printer for binding sheets into a bundle, a bookbinding system provided with such a bookbinding apparatus, and a bookbinding method applied to the bookbinding apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is known a bookbinding apparatus which accumulates sheets successively supplied from an image forming apparatus to thereby form a sheet bundle, and thereafter applies an adhesive, particularly hot-melt adhesive, to one end portion of the sheet bundle and cases it in a cover. In such a bookbinding apparatus, the adhesive is applied to one end portion of the sheet bundle and therefore, the positional accuracy of the sheet bundle and an adhesive applying portion becomes very important. That is, unless the parallelism between the two is kept well, there is the high risk of leading to a missing leaf, such as the non-uniform application of the adhesive to the end edge of the sheet bundle. Therefore, as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H11-34536, the milling process of cutting and truing up the edge surface of the sheet bundle to which the adhesive is to be applied is carried out before the application of the adhesive.
However, when the milling process is carried out on the sheet bundle, a great deal of powdery rubbish is produced and therefore, it becomes necessary to provide a rubbish treating apparatus for sucking and treating such rubbish or a rubbish collecting container for collecting the rubbish therein, and this becomes a hindrance to the downsizing of the bookbinding apparatus.